* All pictures marked are increased partially by magnifying glass, the remaining open in full size by clicking on the image.

** The word "Specimen" is present only on some of electronic pictures, in accordance with banknote images publication rules of appropriate banks.

Description

Watermark:

Captain James Cook, The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, The Royal Navy (7 November 1728 - 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the Royal Navy. Cook made detailed maps of Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific Ocean, during which he achieved the first recorded European contact with the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands, and the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand.

Avers:

The engraving is made, probably, from this portrait of Francis Howard Greenway. The date and author of portrait are unknown.

Francis Howard Greenway (born 1777 in Gloucestershire, England) had a promising career as an architect in the Bristol area until the firm went bankrupt. In March, 1812, Greenway was found guilty of the capital charge of forgery. His death sentence was commuted to 14 years' transportation to the colony of New South Wales. While awaiting transportation, Greenway spent time in Bristol's Newgate Prison.

Greenway arrived in Sydney in 1814 on the General Hewitt. He brought with him letters of recommendation and his portfolio which he sent to Governor Macquarie. He was almost immediately granted a ticket of leave which enabled him to seek his own work to support his wife and children who arrived in July 1814. In December Greenway advertised his architectural services in the Sydney Gazette.

Soon after his arrival, Macquarie requested that Greenway copy a design for a court house from an architectural pattern book. Greenway replied by lecturing the governor on his poor taste in design and suggested that he himself should be employed as the governor’s public works architect. Although Greenway was eventually compelled to copy the design as originally requested, by early 1816 Macquarie was impressed enough by the cocky architect to appoint him Acting Civil Architect.

Governor and Mrs Macquarie had grand plans for the design and layout of Sydney town and an ambitious program of public and private buildings was begun in 1816. Francis Greenway’s commissions varied widely, from lighthouses to obelisks; churches to stables; barracks and prisons to private dwellings.

Francis Greenway’s talent and his knowledge of architecture and design at first complemented Macquarie’s grand vision for a Sydney full of imposing and gracious buildings. His personal style, however, was often arrogant and insolent which irked his superiors. In 1819 Commissioner John Thomas Bigge was sent to Sydney to look into the affairs of the colony. Bigge was critical of the amount of time and money wasted on over-ambitious and unnecessary public works. He also commented on Greenway’s contribution to the architecture of the colony.

During Bigge’s stay, the fragile relationship between the ambitious governor and the arrogant architect began to disintegrate. In November 1822 Greenway was dismissed from his post.

Although he continued in private architectural practice Greenway never recovered his former prominence. He remained bitter about his treatment and wrote several articles and letters for the local press.

Francis Greenway died in 1837 on his farming grant and is buried in an unmarked grave near East Maitland. Despite this ignoble end, Greenway’s legacy lives on in some of Sydney’s finest colonial architecture. (State Library New South Wales)

On the background are his architectural creations:

On the left - drawing by George Evans, "Convict Barrack" in Sydney, N.S.Wales. c.1820, watercolour. Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW.

Below, drawing by Robert Russell, "St. James’ Church and Supreme Court House" in Sydney, printed by J.G. Austin, 1836, lithograph. National Library of Australia.

Also the "Plan and elevation of the Governor’s stable and offices at Sydney, New South Wales", 1820, ink and wash drawing by Francis Greenway. Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW.

Denominations in numerals are top left and right.

Revers:

The engraving is made from this photo of Henry Lawson, made in 1915 by William Johnson.

In William Johnson’s photograph of Lawson, he wears a lounge suit and holds his felt hat and walking stick. Men’s clothes became more relaxed in the first decades of the XX century, with morning suits and top hats being reserved for formal occasions. The lounge suit in tones of grey, brown or navy blue was preferred as a standard form of dress for men, and it has continued in various forms for business attire to the present day. As demonstrated in the photograph, men’s hair was worn shorter in the early XX century than their Victorian predecessors.

More often men were clean-shaven, although young men might favour moustaches, while older ones might wear well-trimmed beards.

Born at Grenfell, New South Wales, June 17, 1867, Henry Lawson was Australia's first great short-story writer and poet. Educated at New Pipeclay and at the Catholic school at Mudgee, and influenced by his mother's writing, Lawson discovered literature. His deafness became evident when he was nine years old and was total five years later. His first jobs were building and carriage making, and Lawson never found a decent trade. He spent his life more than as an unemployed tramp than in making money by his writing, occasional school-teaching, clerking, painting, prospecting, and other jobs. He began writing verse in 1885 and short stories in 1888, contributing to papers like the Sydney Bulletin and the Brisbane Boomerang. He tramped through the outback, visiting Bourke in September 1892 and January 1893, and he later visited Wellington, New Zealand. On April 15, 1896, he and Bertha Bredt married and had a son, Joseph Henry, born February 10, 1898, and then a daughter, Bertha Marie Louise, born February 11, 1900. His mother Louisa had compiled his first collection of verse and prose in 1894, but In the Days When the World Was Wide (1896), a book of poems, firmly established him as a popular and respected poet. The year after his second volume, Verses Popular and Humorous (1900), he and his family went to London, but it was not a successful trip and they returned to Sydney in 1902. His alcoholism, dating from 1898, then became a major problem for himself, his family, and friends, leading to a stay in Prince Alfred Hospital and to separation from Bertha in 1903. By 1905 he was serving time in Darlinghurst Gaol for non-support. From 1907 to 1918 Lawson was often destitute; otherwise he stayed in Darlinghurst mental hospital for alcoholism or was imprisoned for non-support. Volumes of poems and short stories came out unabated, yet they never remunerated him enough. He took an interest in the selection of works for his Selected Poems, but his editor David McKee Wright appears to have emended his texts without consulting him. Lawton finally received a weekly pension from the Commonwealth Literary Fund in 1920. He died September 2, 1922, in Sydney and was given a state funeral two days later at St. Andrew's Church. He is buried in Waverly Cemetery. (Representative Poetry Online)

On the background are excerpts and images of his works.

Denominations in numerals are top left and bottom right.

Comments:

On the tops of obverse and reverse is an inscription "Commonwealth of Australia".

In April 1964, designs by Gordon Andrews were accepted and detailed design work began with the specialist firm "Organisation Giori" in Milan, Italy. New note printing machinery was obtained from the UK.

Design painted by Sydney artist Guy Warren, paying tribute to a number of famous Australians.